Carolina Wild CEO has high hopes for homegrown juice business

Dennis Tracz, CEO and founder of Carolina Wild, describes the process of producing and distributing his muscadine juice in his downtown Kinston office. The juice will hit grocery store shelves nationally in the beginning of next year.

Zach Frailey / The Free Press

By Noah Clark / Staff Writer

Published: Thursday, October 31, 2013 at 09:09 PM.

PINK HILL — Discovered by exploration in 1524, the muscadine plant has been used in a variety of ways. Dennis Tracz hopes he can create a new market for the plant within the healthy juice sector.

Tracz, CEO and founder of Carolina Wild, said he and his wife Elizabeth Maxwell returned to Maxwell’s family farm in Pink Hill in 2012 to take care of her aging parents.

They began to look around the farm, which has been in operation since the 1700s, and discovered that muscadines could be a more profitable alternative to the tobacco that has traditionally been grown on the farm.

After looking at several ways to use muscadines, Tracz said he and Maxwell came up with the idea of producing a healthy juice made from the fruit and selling it in grocery stores locally and across the country.

“Our idea is to take the muscadine and turn it into a healthy juice to compete with other brands, such as POM Wonderful and Naked Juice,” Tracz said.

He said the juice is not currently available, but will hit store shelves starting in February at Gourmet Garage’s five locations in Manhattan.

Tracz said he hopes the business will grow in the future. He cited POM Wonderful as an example of how juice can become successful.

PINK HILL — Discovered by exploration in 1524, the muscadine plant has been used in a variety of ways. Dennis Tracz hopes he can create a new market for the plant within the healthy juice sector.

Tracz, CEO and founder of Carolina Wild, said he and his wife Elizabeth Maxwell returned to Maxwell’s family farm in Pink Hill in 2012 to take care of her aging parents.

They began to look around the farm, which has been in operation since the 1700s, and discovered that muscadines could be a more profitable alternative to the tobacco that has traditionally been grown on the farm.

After looking at several ways to use muscadines, Tracz said he and Maxwell came up with the idea of producing a healthy juice made from the fruit and selling it in grocery stores locally and across the country.

“Our idea is to take the muscadine and turn it into a healthy juice to compete with other brands, such as POM Wonderful and Naked Juice,” Tracz said.

He said the juice is not currently available, but will hit store shelves starting in February at Gourmet Garage’s five locations in Manhattan.

Tracz said he hopes the business will grow in the future. He cited POM Wonderful as an example of how juice can become successful.

“They started 10 years ago with 100 acres,” he said, “they now have 18,000 acres and are doing almost $200 million a year in sales.”

While he and Maxwell will grow some of the fruit on their farm, Tracz hopes more farmers from around the area will grow the crop based upon the success of Carolina Wild.

“We’d like to make Lenoir and Duplin counties Napa East,” he said. “We’d like to see them replace the barren ex-Tobbaco land with the muscadine.”

Carolina Wild has been getting national exposure by sponsoring PBS’s “A Chef’s Life,” which chronicles Kinston’s Chef and The Farmer restaurant.

“It’s been helpful to us in getting exposure to our brand,” he said. “We’ve met a lot of people through that show — particularly chefs who will be using our juice for recipes.”

Tracz said the area is a great place to start a business.

“It’s a great place to live,” he said. “It’s low-cost and proximate to places like Raleigh and the beach. I think it’s a paradise for an entrepreneur to do things like this.”

In the end, Tracz said he hopes to be successful, and that by buying from local growers, it will encourage farmers to stay in the area when they otherwise might choose to relocate.

“We hope the revenue created by our buying the grapes will encourage a lot of kids to stay home,” he said, “and take over their family’s farms instead of leaving and going to a big city. They will actually be able to make a good living by staying here and growing muscadines.”

Noah Clark can be reached at 252-559-1073 or Noah.Clark@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @nclark763.

Do you have you have a new retail business or one that’s undergone a significant change? The Free Press would like to hear about it. Contact Margaret Fisher at 252-559-1081 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com.